


Our House, in the Middle of Our Street

by nostalgia



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Football, Gen, anti-pears agenda, gen - Freeform, nothing very insightful or anything, slightly doctor/tardis but not much, stuck on earth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 21:06:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17649869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nostalgia/pseuds/nostalgia
Summary: The Doctor is stuck on Earth and has to stay with Ryan and Graham for a few days. This does not go well for the toaster.





	Our House, in the Middle of Our Street

Ryan closed the front door quietly and headed into the kitchen, treading softly as he passed the Doctor lying asleep on the settee. You had to be polite when you had house guests, after all, even if the Doctor had insisted that nobody change their daily habits on her behalf.

He dumped the Tesco bags on the kitchen table and started sorting out what went where. Gran had been quite specific about things going in the right places, and he wasn't about to let the whole system collapse just because she wasn't with them any more. 

The Doctor appeared in the doorway, stretching. “That's a very comfy sofa you've got there, Ryan.”

He wasn't sure if she meant it or if she was only being polite, so he repeated the offer he had made a few nights before. “You can have my room, I don't mind.”

“No!” The Doctor looked horrified. “This is your house!” 

“Yeah, but you're a guest.”

She started poking around in the shopping bags. “Only till I get the TARDIS back.” She picked out a bag of Braeburn apples. “Can I have one of these? I like apples. Probably. Haven't actually had one since I regenerated.”

Ryan was intrigued. “Do things taste different every time you change?”

“Yeah. Except pears, pears are always horrible.” She glanced at the bags with some suspicion. “You didn't buy any pears, did you? You never know what could happen if you bring a pear into your home.”

“What, are they alien or something?” It was just about possible, after all. Stranger things had happened, mostly since he had met the Doctor.

“No, they're just... pears.” She shuddered. She replaced the apples, apparently put off fruit by the very idea of having to eat a pear.

Ryan hid a smile and pushed another bag towards her. “Got you that stuff you asked for.”

“Oh, brilliant!” She opened the bag eagerly. “I promise I'll pay for all this when we've got the TARDIS back. It's sort of breaking the laws of time to cheat on the lottery, but who's going to know?” She pulled out a set of stainless steel cutlery and examined it. “You're up early,” she added.

“Nah, it's almost twelve. Granddad's having a lie-in. Not surprised, running about after you all the time at his age.”

“I'm older than Christianity but that doesn't stop me,” countered the Doctor. 

“You don't look much older than thirty-five,” said Ryan, patiently, “you're not _proper_ old.”

The Doctor sniffed and turned her attention back to her cutlery. 

 

–

 

“Doctor!”

“Sorry, sorry, it's okay, I put it out.” The Doctor was standing under the smoke alarm, flapping her hands about to clear the air beneath it.

“What happened?” asked Graham as Ryan used his height advantage to press the silence button on the alarm. 

“I was making toast on the grill,” she told him, “but I got distracted.”

“By what?”

She held up her new phone. “Cat memes. Some of them are really good, there's one with a really long cat and it -”

“Why were making it on the grill anyway?” asked Ryan. “Why didn't you just use the toaster?”

“Ah.” The Doctor looked sheepish. “I was hoping to break that to you gently.”

“Break what gently?” asked Graham, in the long-suffering tone of someone who had met the Doctor.

“You don't have a toaster any more.” She looked down guiltily at the backs of her hands. “I needed some of the parts for my remote control.”

Graham was not what you'd call pleased. “You could have asked first!” 

“I know, I'm sorry.” She looked genuinely contrite but Ryan suspected that sometimes the Doctor apologised for things just to avoid arguments. It wasn't like it actually stopped her doing the same things again two weeks later, after all. “Add it to the list of things I need to pay you for when I have money.” She looked from one to the other. “Does it have to be in cash? I've got this really nice gold lamp from nineteenth-century Egypt that's worth quite a lot and would look really good on that table in the living-room.”

Graham sighed. “It doesn't matter, Doctor. You're our friend, we don't mind you staying here for a bit. Just it'd be nice if you'd mention it beforehand if you're going to take something apart.”

The Doctor nodded. “Okay.” Then, after a pause, she added, “About the PlayStation...”

Ryan gasped out loud. “Doctor! Tell me you're joking, please!”

She bit her lower lip, then shrugged. “The next model's better anyway. I've got about three of those on the TARDIS, you can have one if you like. Just don't tell anyone where you got it.”

He shook his head. This was so not what he'd signed up for.

 

– 

 

“Ryan? Can I borrow you for a minute?”

Ryan made his way up the stairs, then stopped dead in the doorway when he saw what she was doing.

The Doctor was standing in front of the mirror in his bedroom, holding a tape measure in one hand. She was also topless aside from an off-white bra. “I need you to measure me,” she said, turning, “I don't think this bra is quite the right size.” She held out the tape measure expectantly.

Ryan shifted his gaze to stare at the wall behind her. “I can't,” he said.

“Why not?” 

“For a start I don't know how.”

“It's easy,” said the Doctor, “I looked it up on the internet and it's just two measurements and some basic arithmetic.” There was a pause, and then she asked, “Why are you looking at the wall?”

Ryan risked a glance at her. “Do you seriously not...” He sighed. “I'll text Yaz and get her to come round. She can measure you.”

The Doctor's expression suggested that she thought he might have gone mad, but eventually she nodded and Ryan hurried from the room, blushing madly.

 

–

 

“Football's on,” said Ryan, sitting down next to Graham on the sofa and picking up the TV remote control. “Do you want to watch it?”

“I'm not interested in football,” said the Doctor, not looking up from her work. 

“I thought you were a man for two thousand years?” 

The Doctor snorted a laugh. “I was a man, I wasn't _boring_.”

“Oh.” He was surprised by how much the jibe hurt. 

Then, even more surprisingly, the Doctor put down her soldering iron. “I'm sorry,” she said, “I didn't mean to imply that you're not interesting people.” She stood. “I'll watch it with you.”

“You don't have to,” said Graham, shifting to the side to let the Doctor join them on the couch.

“I could do with a break anyway,” she said, turning her attention to the television. “I played football once, a few centuries ago, but I think I've forgotten most of the rules.”

 

“You utter, blithering, _idiot_! That was _never_ offside!” cried the Doctor, jumping to her feet. 

“To be fair -” Graham began.

“There's nothing fair about it, that half-blind fool of a referee's ruined the whole match!”

Ryan attempted to keep the peace. “Doctor, calm down, it doesn't really matter who wins, it's just a friendly.” 

“Friendly? With those tackles? I've seen less violent _wars_!”

Graham picked up the remote, but the Doctor moved lightning-fast to block him. “We can't stop before the end! I'd never be able to get any sleep if I didn't know how this was resolved!”

“It's just a game,” repeated Ryan. “Anyway, West Ham have got no chance.”

Graham looked at him, annoyed. “Oi!” 

“Sorry, granddad, I'm just calling it like it is. They're two – nil down and there's only ten minutes left.”

“They could score three goals in the next five minutes,” protested Graham, but he didn't sound very convinced. 

Ryan turned to the Doctor. “And we can look the result up on the internet later. After you've finished whatever it is that you were working on. You want to get the TARDIS back as soon as possible, yeah?” he added, pointedly.

The Doctor sulked her way across the room, back to her makeshift workshop.

 

–

Two days later the Doctor switched on her weird-looking machine and the sound of the TARDIS materialising filled the room. Graham gestured to Ryan to help move any loose ornaments into safer positions as the ship slowly shimmered into existence.

The Doctor grinned and ran forwards. She threw her arms around the box and pressed herself against it. “Oh, I've missed you so much.”

They waited for her to say something else, but she seemed to be absorbed in a study of the ship's exterior, making note of any new scratches on the wood. 

“I'll call Yaz,” said Ryan, to break the slightly awkward silence. The Doctor sometimes seemed a bit _too_ emotionally-attached to her time machine. 

“Thank you,” said the Doctor when she finally turned away from the TARDIS. “And I really am sorry about the toaster.”

“And the PlayStation,” said Ryan, who wasn't about to let that one go easily.

“That too.” The Doctor opened the door and disappeared into the TARDIS.

“It's a funny old life,” said Graham, after a moment.

“Yeah,” agreed Ryan, “it is.”

–  
–


End file.
